Monday, September 1, 2008

Alrighty! After two months, Bridgette is doing so, so much better! She continues to gain weight (11 lbs. 4 oz. this morning) and to develop like a typical kid. Yesterday we took her for a stroll along the Bonneville Shoreline Trail in Provo Canyon, and a woman on the trail said, "What a cute baby! She must be, what, two months?" It was somehow gratifying to know that our baby is actually normal to the point that people can guess her age by looking at her.

We had a bit of a scare with her rectal irrigations this week, but all's well that ends well. We upped the amount of saline solution that we use in the syringe/catheter, and it washed back out into her diaper all gooey-brown and super-smelly. It had never done that before. So we checked all the other potential symptoms of a colon infection. Her appetite was healthy, she wasn't overly sleepy or fussy, her belly wasn't distended, and her temperature was normal. We called Primary Children's Medical Center just to be sure, and they were actually pleased that so much had washed out. In the words of the nurse, "That's what we want!" As a result, we upped the amount of water again and have increased irrigations to two a day until the brown goo desists.

This week marks a few changes for Jeff and me. Jeff moved teams at work from the "Augmentation" team to the "Search" team. He will miss working closely with his old team leader and good friend, Greg, but he has worked with and respects his new team leader as well. All in all, a painless transition. My change comes tomorrow as I officially attend college classes for the first time with Bridgette in my arms. I may throw in an additional post sometime this week to describe the experience.

Not much else to report, so I'll just post a bunch of photos, per usual. I've included four videos* too, for those of you who 1) are bored, or 2) love my daughter and actually want to watch.

Bridgette fills out the carseat better than her last photos in there.

Hangin' out on the giraffe blanket.

Bri fell asleep in papa's arms one night as we watched a movie.

Our little princess tries hard to chill out in the golden rays of evening after screaming through a sponge bath before bed.

*When Bridgette is playing happily, I always get the camera too late. By the time I take video, she's usually on her I'm-almost-too-grumpy-to-be-too-cute stage. And while grumpy can be its own form of cute, it's not the same as what I wish I had on camera.

Thanks for your comment and questions, Janel. We are making our own solution - 3/4 tsp salt for each 500 ml of water. We change the irrigation cc's based on her weight, and the truth is that we were forgetting to increase amounts until this week.

The hospital staff suggested we take her weight in kilos and add a zero. When she came home from the hospital she was 6 lbs 6 oz, roughly 3 kg, so we did 30 cc's each irrigation. We continued with 30 cc's until this week when we suddenly remembered our instructions. As she is now 11 lbs, roughly 5.5 kg, we are doing 55 cc's saline. Based on the brown goo expelled, we obviously should have done this before. We're working on getting her all cleaned out now, and I'm sure we'll never forget to increase the amount again.

Ack! She is so cute I can hardly stand it! I'll have to come introduce myself to her soon. Do you sponge bath because you prefer it or because her stoma requires it? 11 lbs 4 oz--what a healthy weight. I'm so pleased for your family!

Bridgette can have normal baths, but we sponge her to keep the dressing intact. The best time to give her a full bath would be when her dressing is off, but we typically don't because soaps have aloe or glycerin or some such. Those make her skin less receptive to a good sticky wafer.